[[There’s something wrong about the way Microsoft is running their OS. 10 years seems too short of a window of support on one.]]
They are doing what Adobe did to it’s customers- they are essentially saying “We don’t care what you want- it’s our way or the highway- either pay us big bucks, or go elsewhere- Although win 11 isn’t monthly subscription like adobe moved to- it is forcing users to pay big dollars to upgrade just for hte ‘privilege’ of fighting with a new bug riddled os that has a hard time running on even the latest machines-
Sadly companies today do not care what their customer base thinks or wants- it’s a lousy attitude, and shows a stubborn side by the companies that is unimaginable-
I had a long drawn out argument with Adobe tech when i tried ot reinstall my phtooshop and couldn’t because their servers for previous versions no longer worked- i paid big $$ for the program, and it looked like i was out that money and the program- they wanted me to buy their monthly subscription- offering me a scant 3 months ‘reduced price’ (not free)-
I told several different techs at adobe what they were doign was flat out theft of a product as the original TOs never mentioned that they could pull the plug on the program anytime they liked-
long story short- they assured me there was nothign that coudl be done- that the only recourse was to pay monthly for the new photoshop- well, turns otu htere is soemthign that can be done IF you still have hte comptuter that the old version of photoshop is on- you CAN Deactivate your old copy so that you can put it on your new comp-
What burns me is that the Techs had to know this workaround, yet they kept it hidden from me- hopign i would buy their monthly sub- (The answer is to start photoshop on the old comp in admin mode- then you can deactivate it and reactivate on new comp— i ran across the suggestion after many many many days and hours of researchign how to deactivate it)
Yes, I was a long-term photoshop user as well. I purchased the very first version that was ported to Windows. It was version 2.5 which was release in November of 1992. Mine came bundled with a package called Kai’s Power Tools that was designed to work with it. I eagerly upgraded to version 3 which came to Windows two years later. Back then Photoshop came up with a new version approximately every 2 years.
The upgrades were pretty expensive even back then. I eventually started buying them only when there were features that looked like they would be very helpful. I stopped sending them money when they switched to the subscription model.
I own several photoshop alternatives, but there are some tasks that I just do not know how to accomplish with them, and they are just not as capable. So, I still find myself turning to photoshop instead of learning the ins and outs of these newer packages.